How much are your senators and representatives worth?
After heated budget debates, threats of government shutdowns and multiple votes to raise the debt ceiling, Congress has been dealing with fiscal issues on a regular basis. It is no wonder, then, that when the average citizen has the means to take a peak at each members ability to handle his or her personal finance, intrigue abounds.

The latest data calculated by OpenSecrets.org reports on disclosed information from 2012. The latest batch of numbers shows that the 113th Congress had a median net worth of $1,008,767. This is the first time in history that the majority of members are millionaires.[1]

Summary

The data outlined on this page comes from OpenSecrets.org. They obtained the data from personal financial disclosure data that each senator and representative is required to provide for public record. The Center for Responsive Politics, the organization that runs OpenSecrets.org, calculated each net worth by adding all disclosed assets (corporate bonds, stocks, etc.) and subtracted major liabilities (loans, credit card debt, etc.).[2]

Congressional financial disclosure forms use value ranges, rather than precise amounts, when reporting assets and liabilities. OpenSecrets gathers this information to build a range of potential values. For instance, if three assets are listed at a value range of $1,001-$15,000, the total range of assets would be listed as a minimum of $3,003 (3 X $1,001) and a maximum value would be $45,000 (3 X $15,000). OpenSecrets combines all assets and liability to form a total potential range of values, and then provides an average value as the best guess of each individual's net worth.[5]

Analysis

Ballotpedia staff took OpenSecrets predicted net worth averages for all reported members of congress and using statistical software calculated yearly averages and changes for various congressional subsets.